Federal authorities are investigating the death of a rabbit used in
research at MIT after a technician failed to remove the animal before
its cage was doused with boiling hot water.

The worker responsible for the accident resigned, said officials at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In a letter to the National Institutes of Health, MIT officials said
that a technician transferred two of three rabbits Jan. 16 before
sending their dirty cage through a cage washer with one rabbit still
inside. The technician found the rabbit dead in the cage after it was
sent through the washer.

The US Department of Agriculture acknowledged that it is looking into
the incident, but declined to comment further.

The technician responsible for the rabbit’s death worked in the
school’s Division of Comparative Medicine for 11 years, according to
MIT’s letter. He regularly performed rabbit husbandry and rack and cage
sanitizations.

The employee was put on unpaid administrative leave while MIT
investigated the incident, the letter said, before voluntarily resigning
Jan. 31.

An animal activist group is calling on the Agriculture Department to
fine MIT $10,000, the maximum for a single infraction. The
correspondence between MIT and NIH was obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act request by Michael Budkie, executive director of the
animal activist group Stop Animal Exploitation Now.

NIH-funded institutions are required by law to report violations of
the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals policy. The rabbit was not
supported by NIH funding, the letter stated.

“MIT deeply regrets that the accidental death of a rabbit occurred,”
MIT said in a statement. “MIT took immediate steps to put in place new
protocols to prevent this from happening again.”

Those measures include having two employees ensure that cages are
empty and that the bottoms are inverted before the cages are washed.

NIH said the university has taken appropriate action in response to
the accident.

But Budkie, the animal rights activist, said MIT should be penalized
for the “extremely serious” event.

“This is a horrible death, and as a result we believe they should
face the maximum penalty,” Budkie said.

“Their negligence not only killed an animal, but literally would have
boiled this rabbit alive.”

Harvard Medical School has faced scrutiny for 11 violations of the
Animal Welfare Act at its New England Primate Research Center in
Southborough, which is expected to largely shut down by 2015.

Harvard was fined $24,036 for the violations.

Documents obtained by the same activist group in January revealed
previously undisclosed animal care issues in Harvard’s primate research
operations.